It seemed like the perfect marriage, Dr. Sam Sheppard, a handsome, affluent and socially prominent doctor married to his pretty high school sweetheart. But when Marilyn, 4 months pregnant, was brutally bludgeoned to death in their home while Dr. Sam allegedly slept, cracks in the perfect marriage became obvious. He had a 3-year affair going with another woman and his account of the night of the murder caused the Cleveland Press to crusade for his arrest.

Arrested he was and indicted for Marilyn's murder. But once the case was taken by celebrity attorney F. Lee Bailey, "Dr. Sam," after a landmark Supreme Court decision, was acquitted in his second trial. So Dr. Sam was free, but hardly any one in Cleveland believed in his innocence except for his son, who 35 years later began a crusade to clear his father's name.


Nancy Kissel
It was almost midnight on Nov. 6, 2003, when Hong Kong police investigators entered a storage room at the exclusive Parkview high-rise apartment complex. They found what they were looking for behind the doora rolled oriental rug tied with rope and bound with clear adhesive tape. The rug seemed suspiciously bulky, and when the investigators unrolled it, they found what they expecteda body.

Robert Kissel, a high-flying investment banker, was a prominent member of the American expatriate community in Hong Kong. Police arrested his wife, Nancy, who stated that her husband had assaulted her over the previous weekend after she refused to have sex with him.

Does poisoning ones husband with a pink arsenic-laced milkshake constitute premeditated murder?


T. Cullen Davis
Preteen Andrea Wilborn died a cruel and violent death in the wine cellar of her family's mansion. The killer had her kneel on the floor of the cellar and shot her in the back of the head, execution-style.

A smeared, bloody handprint was found by police. Within hours, police had a description of the killer and a single suspect; T. Cullen Davis, one of the richest men in America and the model for the villainous J.R. Ewing on the nighttime soap opera "Dallas." In a series of events that emulate soap opera fiction, the billionaire oil man was charged in the most expensive investigation and trial in Texas history for the murder of his daughter and wife's boyfriend, shooting a witness, assaulting his wife and paying to have a judge murdered.

Many called it the best "justice money can buy."


Richard & Nancy Lyon
Nancy Dillard Lyon, daughter of a Dallas real estate tycoon, reached the heartrending conclusion that her marriage to husband Richard, whom she met when they were both grad students at Harvard, was over.

During an 8-year marriage, the ambitious Nancy had juggled a successful career with motherhood after giving birth to the couple's two daughters. Meanwhile Richard spent far more money than he earned, and the family was in constant financial peril. Once, he charged an Alfa Romeo sports car to the couple's American Express card when they were too broke to make their mortgage payments.

When Nancy died from arsenic poisoning, her parents and her brother Bill were sure that Richard killed her. The high-profile case exposed incest between Nancy and her brother and the adultery of her husband. But did Richard really kill his wife? The evidence is controversial.



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